Inmate Was Frantic For Methadone

July 12, 2001|By Doris Bloodsworth, Sentinel Staff Writer

When Karen Johnson discovered she was going to the Orange County Jail instead of a hospital, she pleaded with a guard to help her get the methadone doctors had prescribed to break her addiction to painkillers.

Johnson, 43, said she had insurance and could pay for the medication. She said she would put money into her jail account, if necessary, to get methadone from an outside clinic. Otherwise, she feared she would die.

As they waited for a ride to jail on May 30, according to a report filed by Corrections Officer Linda Austin, Johnson asked "if she was going to be allowed to die in jail `like the other' inmate" -- a reference to Susan Bennett, who died four years ago at the Orange County Jail from complications of methadone withdrawal.

Austin's response: "I told her no, she would be taken care of by medical."

But no one took care of Karen Johnson. Instead, her worst fears came true: By June 7, she was dead -- as a result of cold-turkey withdrawal from methadone, according to an autopsy report released Wednesday.

Dr. William Anderson, deputy chief medical examiner with the Orange-Osceola Medical Examiner's Office, wrote that Johnson's withdrawal symptoms caused her to have a seizure on June 2 that cut off her body's oxygen supply for a "prolonged" period. That caused irreversible brain damage that killed her five days later, medical examiners said.

REPORT ANGERS FAMILY

The blandly worded report confirmed what Johnson's cellmates described to the Orlando Sentinel -- and infuriated Johnson's family.

"I don't care how they put it, they murdered her," said Catherine Hirsch, Johnson's mother. "If she would have gotten help, she would still be alive today."

Family members said Johnson had been on a methadone program since December trying to break her addiction.

She had spent a week at Sand Lake Hospital recovering from taking too many tranquilizers before she was booked into the jail. She later told Austin she had overdosed because "everything had gotten too much for her." Johnson was jailed because she had violated her home-confinement sentence for shoplifting by leaving the scene of an auto accident.

CLASSIC SYMPTOMS IN JAIL

Johnson returned to jail May 30, and three days later, on June 2, cellmates said she began suffering classic methadone withdrawal symptoms -- vomiting, diarrhea, cramping and shivering. At one point, she was taken to see a nurse -- then returned to her cell.

Sometime after 4 p.m. that day, inmates said they found Johnson unconscious in the cell suffering from what looked like a seizure.

Five days later, she was removed from life support and died immediately.

The case is hauntingly similar to Bennett's death in 1997. Bennett's withdrawal symptoms lasted 12 days -- until she was found dead in her cell, lying naked in her own waste.

`WAKE-UP CALL' IGNORED

In 1998, the county settled a lawsuit filed by Bennett's family for $3 million.

Elizabeth Alexander, director of the National Prison Project of the American Civil Liberties Union, said that settlement should have been a wake-up call to county and jail officials.

"What would be more clear notice than having the tragedy of a person's death?" she said in an interview from Washington. "I would predict many jury members would be worried by the repetitive nature of this conduct. It's a shocking case."

Orange County is self-insured, so any pretrial settlement or amount awarded after a trial, if the county lost, would come directly from taxpayers.

County Chairman Rich Crotty expressed his sympathy to Johnson's family Wednesday and said he hopes a task force looking into jail problems will prevent any more tragedies.

Public Safety Director Tom Hurlburt said he is looking into why the jail doesn't administer methadone and what can be done in the future.

Crotty said the Chairman's Jail Oversight Commission he intends to appoint will meet for five months and look into medical issues, such as mental health and substance abuse, as well as other jail problems, including staffing and an antiquated records system.

WOMAN FEARED GOING TO JAIL

Rusty Johnson, Karen's ex-husband, had said last week that his former wife told him she feared going back to jail.

"She knew she wouldn't get methadone," he said. "It would be the scariest thing in the world knowing what was coming and not being able to do anything about it."